USA v. Peralta

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v. 	Case No. 25-10080-JWB
RUBEN FRANCO PERALTA,
Defendant.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter is before the court on Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence. (Doc. 27.) The
motion is fully briefed and ripe for decision. 	(Docs. 27, 33, 35.) 	The court held a hearing on
December 16, 2025. The motion is DENIED for the reasons stated herein.
I. 	Facts
On August 5, 2025, Defendant Ruben Franco Peralta was indicted on one count of
possession of a firearm by an illegal alien in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5). (Doc. 1.) The
following facts are taken from the testimony of the government’s witnesses at the hearing held on
December 16, 2025. On May 3, 2025, two Haskell County Sheriff’s Deputies, Victor Mora and
Joel Lathen, were dispatched to a U Pump It truck stop on Highway 83 in Haskell County, Kansas.
There, two vehicles previously involved in an accident along Highway 83 had stopped. Upon the
officers’ arrival they discovered the two vehicles parked at the gas station.
A white pickup truck was parked in a stall, and another vehicle was parked behind it as if
to prevent it from leaving. 	The white pickup truck belonged to Mr. Peralta. 	The other vehicle
belonged to a man named Johnny Classen. Mr. Classen informed Deputy Lathen (the first to arrive
on the scene) that he had been traveling northbound on Highway 83 when Mr. Peralta’s pickup
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truck, heading southbound, crossed the center line. Mr. Classen swerved to avoid it, but the two
cars hit mirrors and both were damaged. 	Mr. Peralta did not stop his vehicle following the
collision, so Mr. Classen followed him to the truck stop.
Deputy Lathen then engaged with Mr. Peralta. Mr. Peralta indicated that he did not speak
English and could only communicate in Spanish. 	Deputy Mora arrived at the scene shortly
thereafter. Deputy Mora speaks Spanish and was able to communicate with Mr. Peralta. Deputy
Mora attempted to help Mr. Peralta locate his insurance and registration information. Deputy Mora
escorted Mr. Peralta to his pickup truck where Mr. Peralta looked in both the front and rear
passenger side doors. Mr. Peralta was unable to locate his insurance and registration information.
Mr. Peralta was also unable to produce a driver’s license.
During this interaction, Deputy Mora noticed an odor of alcohol coming from Mr. Peralta’s
person. 	Following this observation, Deputy Mora began investigating Mr. Peralta for driving
under the influence (“DUI”). 	Deputy Mora performed field sobriety tests on Mr. Peralta. 	He
performed three “standardized field sobriety tests”: (1) a horizontal gaze nystagmus test; (2) a walk
and turn test; and (3) a one-leg stand test. Mr. Peralta complied with Deputy Mora’s instructions
for these tests but his performance on all three indicated he was intoxicated. At this point, Deputy
Mora performed a preliminary breath test using a portable breathalyzer unit. 	Mr. Peralta’s
breathalyzer reading was 0.197 which is almost two-and-a-half times the legal limit.
Deputies Mora and Lathen arrested Mr. Peralta for DUI. 	Mr. Peralta was placed in
handcuffs and then seated in the back of Deputy Mora’s patrol car. 	Mr. Peralta was then
transported to the Haskell County Sherriff’s Office. 	Deputy Lathen remained on scene and
conducted a search of Mr. Peralta’s truck. Deputy Lathen testified he was looking for evidence of
the crime of DUI such as open containers, cans, or bottles. Under the front passenger seat Deputy
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Lathen found an almost empty can of beer. In the back pocket of the passenger seat, Deputy Lathen
found two more open containers and one unopened container of alcohol. 	Additionally, Deputy
Lathen found a .22 caliber Ruger 1022 rifle, complete with a 25-round magazine, behind the
driver’s seat. Deputy Lathen entered the rifle into evidence at the sheriff’s office.
When authorities determined that Mr. Peralta was illegally present in the United States,
they concluded his possession of the rifle was a crime. A grand jury returned the aforementioned
indictment. Mr. Peralta now moves to suppress evidence of the rifle as the product of an unlawful
search and seizure in violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States
Constitution.
II. 	Analysis
Mr. Peralta moves to suppress on the ground that the search of his vehicle was not a valid
search incident to arrest. 	(Doc. 27 at 3-7.) The government responds, arguing that the search was
a proper search incident to arrest and even if it was not, the officers acted in good faith and
therefore the evidence should not be suppressed. (Doc. 33 at 3-11.) In his reply brief, Mr. Peralta
contests each of the government’s arguments. For the reasons discussed below, the court denies
the motion to suppress because it finds that the search was a valid search incident to arrest.
A. The Fourth Amendment
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The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads: “The right of the people1
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by
Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things
to be seized.” U.S. Const. amend IV. The Supreme Court has held that warrantless searches are
“per se unreasonable.” 	Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967). 	That said, the
“presumption may be overcome in some circumstances because ‘the ultimate touchstone of the
Fourth Amendment is reasonableness.’” Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452, 459 (2011) (quoting
Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006)).
The Supreme Court has expended considerable effort defining the contours of an entire
menu of exceptions to the warrant requirement. See e.g., Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132
(1925) (automobile exception); Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969) (searches incident to
arrest); South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364 (1976) (inventory searches); Mincey v. Arizona,
437 U.S. 385 (1978) (exigent circumstances); New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981) (searches
incident to arrest as applied to automobiles); New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691 (1987)
(administrative searches).
1 Courts, including this one, have expressed skepticism that illegal aliens like Mr. Peralta fall within the scope of “the
people” as expounded in the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence. See e.g., United States v. Escobar-
Temal, No. 24-5668, 2025 WL 3632831 at *14 (6th Cir. Dec. 15, 2025) (Thapar, J., dissenting in part and concurring
in the judgment) (“An illegal alien asserts the Second Amendment “right of the people” to bear arms, arguing that
constitutional guarantees attach to noncitizens who have developed a personal connection to this country. Properly
read, our text, history, and tradition squarely foreclose his claim. They reveal that “the people” refers to the citizens
of the United States who consented to its government. Since illegal aliens are not citizens, they cannot lay claim to
the right to bear arms reserved for ‘We, the People.’”). The court notes here that the phrase “the people” appears in
the Bill of Rights not just in the Second Amendment, but also the First, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments. As Judge
Thapar explained, illegal aliens are not part of “the people” as the phrase is used in the Constitution. See also United
States v. Peralta, No. 25-CR-10080, 2025 WL 3550779 at *2 (D. Kan. Dec. 11, 2025). Given that the phraseology is
the same, it would seem to follow that the Fourth Amendment, and other constitutional rights limited to “the people”
would not apply to Mr. Peralta either. Still, the Tenth Circuit has expressed that the question of the reach of the “the
people” is a “challenging threshold question.” United States v. Duque-Ramirez, 161 F.4th 1237, 1245 (10th Cir.
2025). 	Therefore, and because neither the government nor the defense disputes that notion the court proceeds
assuming that the Fourth Amendment does apply to Mr. Peralta, despite the present contradiction.
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At base, the search incident to arrest exception posits that (1) “it is reasonable for the
arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might
seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape”; and (2) “it is entirely reasonable for the
arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee's person in order to prevent
its concealment or destruction.” Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763 (“And the area into which an arrestee
might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary items must, of course, be governed by a like
rule. A gun on a table or in a drawer in front of one who is arrested can be as dangerous to the
arresting officer as one concealed in the clothing of the person arrested. There is ample
justification, therefore, for a search of the arrestee's person and the area ‘within his immediate
control’—construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of
a weapon or destructible evidence.”).
After Chimel, the search incident to arrest rule was routinely applied to traffic stops.
Belton, 453 U.S. at 459. In Belton, the court authorized warrantless searches of the entirety of the
passenger compartment of a vehicle when done as a contemporaneous incident of arrest. 	Id. at
460. Belton also authorized the search of any containers within the passenger compartment. Id.
But in the years following Belton, constitutional creep ensued, and the Belton rule was used to
justify searches “even if there is no possibility the arrestee could gain access to the vehicle at the
time of search.” Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 341 (2009). This understanding “untether[ed]”
the Belton rule from its Chimel ancestor. Id. at 343. The search incident to arrest doctrine was,
from its inception, understood as serving the state’s interest in protecting the safety of police
officers and preventing the destruction of evidence. Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763. Therefore, using
that rationale to justify searches where the arrestee is secured “stretches it beyond its breaking
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point.” 	Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. 615, 625 (2004) (Scalia, J., concurring in the
judgment)).
In Arizona v. Gant, the Supreme Court expressly rejected that broad reading of Belton
which permitted searches incident to arrest of a vehicle during “every arrest of a recent occupant
notwithstanding that in most cases the vehicle's passenger compartment will not be within the
arrestee's reach at the time of the search.” Gant, 556 U.S. at 343. It held instead that police may
“search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant's arrest only when the arrestee is unsecured and
within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search.” Id. This rule
prohibits the pre-Gant era searches that were permitted “even when ... the handcuffed arrestee has
already left the scene.” 	Id. (quoting Thornton, 541 U.S. at 628 (Scalia, J., concurring in the
judgment)).
But the Gant court did not stop there. The court explained that “circumstances unique to
the vehicle context” can justify another kind of search incident to arrest. Id. at 343. Justice Scalia
had previously outlined this view in a concurrence in Thornton v. United States. 541 U.S. at 625.
The Gant court explicitly referenced and incorporated Justice Scalia’s concurrence into its
majority opinion. A search incident to lawful arrest is also permissible “when it is ‘reasonable to
believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle.’” Gant, 556 U.S. at
343 (quoting Thornton, 541 U.S. at 625 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment)). The Gant court
went on to say that “[i]n many cases, as when a recent occupant is arrested for a traffic violation,
there will be no reasonable basis to believe the vehicle contains relevant evidence. But in others,
including Belton and Thornton, the offense of arrest will supply a basis for searching the passenger
compartment of an arrestee's vehicle and any containers therein.” Id. at 343-44 (internal citations
omitted). 	In doing so, the court articulated a standard, “reasonable belief,” for searching
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automobiles that requires less than probable cause. Id. at 347 (contrasting Gant with several other
exceptions to the warrant requirement, including the broader probable cause automobile exception
as outlined in United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 820-21 (1982)).
The Gant court concluded by expressly rejecting both possible rationales as justifying the
search before it. Id. at 344 (“Because police could not reasonably have believed either that Gant
could have accessed his car at the time of the search or that evidence of the offense for which he
was arrested might have been found therein, the search in this case was unreasonable.”) (emphasis
added). As this court reads the state of the law, Gant authorizes warrantless vehicular searches
incident to arrest in two circumstances: (1) “when the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching
distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search”; and (2) “when it is reasonable to
believe that evidence related to the crime of arrest is within the vehicle.” 	Id. at 343 (internal
quotation marks and citations omitted).
Due to the foregoing controlling law, in this case, the court views Deputy Lathen’s search
as authorized by the second circumstance in Gant. 	Deputy Mora performed standardized field
sobriety tests on Mr. Peralta, all of which Mr. Peralta failed. Additionally, Deputy Mora performed
a preliminary breath test on Mr. Peralta that showed Mr. Peralta’s blood-alcohol content was close
to two-and-a-half times the legal limit. This gave Deputy Mora probable cause to arrest Mr. Peralta
for driving under the influence. A DUI offense is one where there may be evidence of that offense
in the car, such as open containers. State v. Cantrell, 233 P.3d 178, 185 (Id. Ct. App. 2010) With
this evidence as the basis, the court finds that the government has easily cleared the “low bar” of
reasonable belief. Cf. United States v. Leon, 80 F.4th 1160, 1170 (10th Cir. 2023) (explaining that
reasonable suspicion, an analogous doctrine, is a “low bar”). 	Put simply, it is a reasonable
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inference from the facts above, that open containers might be in Mr. Peralta’s car. And indeed,
they were.
Defendant’s protests to the contrary are unpersuasive. First, Defendant argues that because
Mr. Peralta was removed from the scene prior to the search, the search was not contemporaneous
with the arrest and the search incident to arrest doctrine cannot apply. As explained previously,
this is belied by the plain language of Gant which explicitly delineates a second possible
justification for searches of automobiles incident to lawful arrest. 556 U.S. at 343, 346-47, 351.
Contemporaneousness is only required when the search is justified under Gant’s first prong, which
fears the arrestee reaching for an object to either destroy evidence or harm police. Cantrell, 233
P.3d at 182 (“This exception is separate and distinct from the ‘reaching distance’ exception
announced in Chimel.”). The “reaching” situation envisioned in Chimel is not present in this case.
Defendant’s case citations arguing the opposite are of no moment. Defendant claims that
Tenth Circuit case law forecloses this court’s description of the doctrine, but he is incorrect. First,
he cites case law that predates Gant and thus does not take account of Gant’s seismic reshaping of
the search incident to arrest exception. See (Doc. 27 at 4, 5; Doc. 35 at 2, 3) (citing United States
v. Lugo, 978 F.2d 631 (10th Cir. 1992) and United States v. Edwards, 632 F.3d 633 (10th Cir.
2001)). 	Second, the post-Gant cases that Defendant does cite, do not address the factual
circumstances covered by Gant’s second prong. See (Doc. 27 at 3, 4, 5; Doc. 35 at 2, 3) (citing
United States v. Knapp, 917 F.3d 1161 (10th Cir. 2019) (concerned evidence in a purse not
evidence in a vehicle), United States v. Knox, 883 F.3d 1262 (10th Cir. 2018) (concerned evidence
in a home), and United States v. Polly, 630 F.3d 991 (10th Cir. 2011) (factual circumstances
permitted the court to uphold the search on traditional automobile exception grounds and the court
does not address the second prong of Gant)).
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Moreover, were Defendant correct that temporal proximity is required no matter the search
justification, 	it 	would 	render 	much 	of 	the 	Court’s 	opinion 	in 	Gant 	irrelevant. 	If
contemporaneousness and an unsecured arrestee were required, then the Supreme Court’s pains to
articulate “reasonable belief” was wasted breath. Searches contemporaneous with an unsecured
arrestee were already justified under Chimel. Gant, 556 U.S. at 343. Nonetheless, the Supreme
Court undertook the effort to describe the “reasonable belief” standard precisely because some
searches incident to arrest are justified even when the arrestee is secured, and the search is therefore
not contemporaneous with arrest. See id. at 341-44; see also Thornton, 541 U.S. at 628 (Scalia,
J., concurring in the judgment).
Defendant’s second argument resisting the court’s conclusion is that even if the search
incident to arrest doctrine is applicable, “there was no reason to believe the vehicle contained
evidence of the offense of arrest.” (Doc. 27 at 6.) As the court has already explained, this is simply
not true. 	Deputies Mora and Lathen uncovered a raft of evidence that Mr. Peralta was driving
under the influence. This evidence easily lends itself to a reasonable inference that open containers
could be in the car. But still, Defendant points the court toward distinguishable cases that, in his
mind, do have facts rising to the level of reasonable belief. 	(Doc. 35 at 5-6.) 	He claims these
cases, unlike the case at bar, contain “articulable facts about the contents of the vehicle which
related to the DUI arrest.” (Id. at 5.)
But nothing in Gant compels the court to look at the evidence in a straitjacket. The cases
cited by Defendant merely demonstrate that there is a range of facts that could generate a
reasonable belief. Requiring the presence of the facts Defendant highlights from other cases would
turn “reasonable belief” into probable cause, which as explained above, would render the second
prong of Gant duplicative of the automobile exception. The instant case has different facts, but
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that alone does not take it out of the ambit of Gant’s second prong. See State v. Ewertz, 305 P.3d
23, 28 (Kan. Ct. App.) (“The district court found that Officer Tatro had probable cause to arrest
Ewertz for driving under the influence based on the smell of alcohol in the car, Ewertz' failure of
some of the field sobriety tests, and her glassy and bloodshot eyes. . . . The district court also found
that Tatro observed Ewertz swerving before he made the stop and noted her speech was slurred. .
. . In addition to evidence that the car Ewertz was driving swerved in its lane and crossed over the
fog line, that Tatro smelled alcohol in the car after he pulled Ewertz over, that Ewertz failed field
sobriety tests, that Ewertz had glassy and bloodshot eyes, and that Ewertz slurred her words, there
is also evidence that Ewertz admitted to drinking at least one alcoholic beverage before driving the
car.”).
Some courts have even taken the position that it is the offense of arrest alone that generates
the reasonable belief necessary to search for evidence within the vehicle. See e.g., Brown v. State,
24 So.3d 671, 679 (Fl. Dist. Ct. App. 2009); United States v. Page, 679 F. Supp. 2d 648, 654 (E.D.
Va. 2009) (“On closer examination, it would appear that the majority in Gant distinguishes
between offenses for which it is unlikely that the arrestee's vehicle contains relevant evidence, i.e.,
traffic violations, and offenses for which the recovery of such evidence is likely.”). 	This court
declines to adopt that approach wholesale, because it may be difficult to determine whether certain
offenses belong within the class of offenses where it is foreseeable that evidence is within the
vehicle. See United States v. Reagan, 713 F. Supp. 2d 724, 732 (E.D. Tenn. 2010) (“It is relatively
easy to decide that certain criminal offenses, like the six minor traffic violations from Atwater,
Knowles, and Gant, are offenses for which there is no physical evidence. But it is more difficult to
decide whether a criminal offense such as telephone harassment ‘by [its] nature ... might yield
physical evidence.’”) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). That said, Gant itself and
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Justice Scalia’s concurrence in Thornton plainly envisage that the offense of arrest is at least
relevant to whether the officer can form reasonable belief that evidence may be within the vehicle.
Gant, 556 U.S. at 343-44 and Thornton, 541 U.S. at 632 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment)
(“A motorist may be arrested for a wide variety of offenses; in many cases, there is no reasonable
basis to believe relevant evidence might be found in the car.”). “[T]he offense of arrest will supply
a basis for searching the passenger compartment of an arrestee’s vehicle and any containers
therein.” Gant, 556 U.S. at 344.
With the foregoing in mind the court holds that the totality of the circumstances supports a
finding of reasonable belief. The fact that Mr. Peralta was arrested for driving under the influence,
Mr. Classen’s report that Mr. Peralta crossed the center line and caused the accident, the odor
coming from Mr. Peralta’s person, and Mr. Peralta’s failure of multiple field sobriety tests and the
preliminary breath test is more than enough. 	Moreover, “the arresting officer's own prior
experiences or his or her knowledge of the experience of fellow officers, which can be articulated,
of finding open containers or other evidence related to the offense inside the passenger
compartment . . . is a solid part of ‘reasonable articulable suspicion.’ . . . Reasonable suspicion
may be derived from an officer's own experience or his or her knowledge of the experience of
other officers.” Taylor v. State, 137 A.3d 1029, 1034 (Md. Ct. App. 2016). This is a case “where
police could . . . expect to find evidence in the passenger compartment of [Mr. Peralta’s] car.”
Gant, 556 U.S. at 344.
Common sense alone dictates that evidence of a DUI “might” be within the vehicle. Absent
some mitigating facts, that is all the Fourth Amendment requires. Id. Ergo, Defendant’s motion
to suppress must be denied.
III. 	Conclusion
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For the foregoing reasons, Defendant’s motion to suppress (Doc. 27), is DENIED. 	The
court notes that there are only six days remaining for trial under the Speedy Trial Act. This would
not allow the parties much time to prepare for trial, nor would it allow sufficient time to summon
a jury. 	The court finds it is in the interests of justice to continue the trial on its own motion to
allow the parties additional time to prepare and so that a jury may be scheduled in due course. See
18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(A). 	The ends of justice are served by granting this continuance and
excluding, for Speedy Trial purposes, the time from the entry of this order to the new trial date of
Monday, February 9, 2026. The case is set for status conference Monday, January 26, 2026, at
9:00 A.M., U.S. Courthouse, Wichita, Kansas, Room 232, and the trial is set to begin on Monday,
February 9, 2026, at 9:00 a.m., U.S. Courthouse, Wichita, Kansas, Courtroom 238.
IT IS SO ORDERED. Dated this 13th day of January, 2025.
s/ John W. Broomes
JOHN W. BROOMES
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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